AZUB Twin Tandem

January 23rd, 2017 by Bryan Ball

By BRYAN J. BALL

Managing Editor

AZUB has always been a company that is focused on touring. And when AZUB thinks of touring they don’t mean your average “throw your tent in the support truck and meet up at the next camp sight” sort of touring. They’re thinking of true “middle of nowhere, turn left for 100 miles and sleep in the desert” kind of touring. So when they redesigned their Twin tandem for 2016, it’s not surprising that they optimized it for that very purpose.

The first impression you get of the Twin is that it looks tough, maybe even a bit overbuilt. The frame tubes are all very fat and the welds look like the focus was on bomb-proof durability over pure aesthetics. That’s not to say that they don’t still look good (they do), but this bike definitely has a sense of purpose.

The Twin has full suspension and it’s most unique feature is definitely at the rear. The Twin uses two coil-over shocks in the rear rather than the standard one. AZUB went this way because most single shocks would be quickly overwhelmed by the weight of two riders and a heavy touring load. Also, having two shocks on either side of the rear wheel rather than one mounted in front of the wheel helps make a very long bike just a bit shorter.

Two major changes were made to the Twin for 2016. First of all, the front seat height was lowered by a couple of inches. This tweak will be especially welcome when you need to get two feet firmly on the ground at a stop with a stoker and full bags on board. The second change was to the way the leg extension is adjusted for the stoker. On the previous iteration of Twin, the bottom bracket moved. On this one, the bottom bracket is fixed and the frame itself telescopes. This not only makes things a bit less complicated, it also helps make the bike much shorter if you have a shorter stoker.

If you’re paying attention to the first few paragraphs, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve mention the Twin’s length twice. There’s a reason for that. This is a very big bike. With average-size riders, it’s almost 120” long. Again… There’s a reason for that. On a lot of shorter recumbent tandems such as the RANS Screamer, the bottom bracket is very low. For a shorter stoker, bikes like this barely offer what can really be called a recumbent riding position. The longer length of the Twin means that both the captain and the stoker are in truly laid back as the Recumbent Gods intended. I didn’t spend a lot of seat time in the rear seat, but the position felt similar to that of a higher bottom bracket long wheelbase bike. This will vary a bit depending on your height, but it was very appropriate for the hardshell seat our test bike came with.

The captain’s position feels a lot like the AZUB Six single that I reviewed a couple of years ago. The seat height is still a bit higher, but the bottom bracket ratio is pretty similar. The layout of the cockpit will also be familiar to anyone who’s ridden an AZUB single.

I fully admit that I am not the most experienced recumbent tandem pilot on Earth. I owned a Screamer for a year or so but my stoker wasn’t too keen on it. I probably have more miles as a stoker than I do as a captain. And finding willing participants to sit on the back of the Twin while I was “in command” was more difficult that I thought. Perhaps my reputation for being a nutcase on the descents preceded me. Anyway… I think I did get enough miles in to get a good feel for the Twin but please reference my experience level for this next part.